About this election
With Sauli Niinistö term-limited, Finland elected a new president in 2024. In the first round on 28 January, Alexander Stubb of the National Coalition Party led with 27.21%, narrowly ahead of the independent (Green-backed) Pekka Haavisto on 25.80%; the Finns Party's Jussi Halla-aho (18.99%) and the independent former EU commissioner Olli Rehn (15.32%) followed. As no candidate passed 50%, a runoff was held on 11 February 2024, which Stubb won by 51.62% to Haavisto's 48.38% — the closest second round in the history of Finland's direct presidential elections. First-round turnout was 71.55% and second-round turnout 67.59%.
The president is elected directly for a six-year term by a two-round majority system, with a runoff between the top two candidates if no one wins an outright majority. The office leads foreign and security policy together with the government.
The election was the first since Finland joined NATO in April 2023, and foreign and security policy toward Russia dominated the campaign. Stubb, a former prime minister and finance minister, and Haavisto, a former foreign minister, offered broadly similar Western-aligned positions, making personality and experience central. The bar chart on this page shows the nine-candidate first round; Stubb prevailed in the head-to-head runoff.
In 2018 Sauli Niinistö had been re-elected in a single round with 62.64%, an unusually decisive result that contrasted sharply with 2024's knife-edge runoff.
Statistics Finland (Tilastokeskus) and the Ministry of Justice election results service — stat.fi.